By Godson Ogheneochuko
Just when one thinks he or she has heard the worst that could happen in this country of ours, some other news seemingly crops out from nowhere to knock one off his saddle.
I'm sorry to disappoint but I certainly do not want to bother at this time, about the alleged presence of fraudsters in the National Assembly or some other political gist. Instead, my attention is firmly fixed in the direction of the education sector of the country, which is unarguably a critical and important sector of every country.
A few days ago, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) through its media advisory unit, came out with the staggering and frightening revelation that no less than 10 million children of school age, were out of school in Nigeria. It said that out of that number, four million, seven hundred thousand (4.7 million) were of primary school age, while five million, three hundred thousand (5.3 million) were of secondary school age. According to UNICEF, "sixty-two per cent of the children out of school are girls, while in the northern states, only forty-nine per cent of primary school of age are boys and only thirty-four per cent of girls attend primary school."
With this frightening statistics, one is forced to shudder at the implications of the recent revelation on the future of this country. If the children are really the leaders of tomorrow, this country is already by implication, in deep mess that requires urgent solution. There is no gainsaying the fact that no nation can effectively develop where such a large number of its crop of future leaders is educationally disenfranchised.
In the northern states of Nigeria especially, it is common to see a large number of children of school age, engaged in street begging and a few others, in street trading or hawking. These children usually grow up without any form of formal education, which is actually a violation of their rights to compulsory education as guaranteed under the Child Rights Act 2003. These children who stay, work and beg in the streets, are deprived of the basic and standard form of education, which ultimately translates to the fact that when they become too old to beg and attract the sympathy of others, they will be forced to resort to a life of crime to sustain themselves. And then, the society and citizenry are the worse for it. You and I become victims of our silence in times past. Government should be supported to address the socio-economic angle of this problem but we must all speak out against this disturbing situation.
Apart from those children who are out of school, concern must be directed at those who attend the available schools because the standard of education continues to drop at an alarming pace. The fees demanded by private schools continue to spiral upwards and are virtually out of the financial reach of many parents and guardians, leaving the children at the mercy of public schools that suffer from inadequate personnel, shortage of equipment and infrastructure and several other problems.
Our schools (including the universities) today, do not attract the best brains because of the poor conditions of service. These intellectually blessed individuals would rather work in a financial institution doing routine work, than accept the more intellectually stimulating job of teaching and impacting knowledge in the academia, simply because the take home pay in a bank for example, can take him home.
In the past, there have been several demands for better conditions of service (including increase in wages) by the academic and non-academic staff unions of our schools especially at the tertiary level but unfortunately, when agreements are reached between these unions and government, it usually takes the threat of strike or the act of strike itself, to force the latter to implement the fine letters of such agreements.
Only recently, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) threatened to go on strike to press home their demand that the agreement reached with government years ago, be implemented. In truth, I have always had cause to wonder why the government is always reluctant to implement agreements that were reached across the table, without a gun to the head of its negotiators. This attitude must stop if progress must be attained.
This humble advice to government to faithfully implement agreements become even more timely, considering the fact that a few days ago, the Federal Government disclosed that it is ready to put an end to the re-occurring strikes in higher institutions by meeting with the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) and other stakeholders in the Nigerian education sector. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr Sani Sufi, who was speaking with journalists at the World Bank Institute workshop for Education Reforms in the country in Abuja, said the meeting would include Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Directors and Provosts of Colleges of Education.
He further disclosed that the issues of physical improvement of infrastructures in the various universities that will lead to conducive learning will be looked into with a view to bringing a holistic and lasting solution to the problems bedevilling the nation's tertiary institutions. He said, "In 2008, we are going to look at the whole sector of higher education to see how we can reduce the number of strikes. Strikes and loss of class work are some of the things limiting the quality of education in our higher institutions. So, this year, we have undertaken to make sure that from now henceforth, there are less number of strikes in the country. We have started our meetings with the Vice Chancellor, Rectors, Directors and Provosts of tertiary institutions, and everybody that has a stake in the sector, including ASUU to ensure that we come up with certain agreements."
Now, as commendable as these steps are and no matter the loftiness of the agreements reached, it all counts for nothing when the letters of such agreements are not honoured. The trend has to be halted instantly because the educational and mental well-being of students (especially that of the children) is at stake. In today's global world, no sane society can continue to ignore the harsh effects of the predilection of government to ignore laudable agreements without reason and no society can achieve progress, where there is no sustainable platform for the future leaders and followers to achieve literacy and education.
The figure – 10 million children of school age out of school, is by all means damning statistics and an indictment on our collective sense of reason. We must all advocate for a reversal of the trend now.
Ogheneochuko is a legal practitioner in Abuja
